1.7The Development of Life Science

Life sciencebegan as a discipline that was applicable to onlyhumans, but evolvedconsiderably and ultimately became a disciplineapplicable to all livingorganisms on the earth. Today, life scienceresearchincludes not onlyfundamentalresearch about genomes,evolution, and the like, but also research about humansregardingmedicalissues,food,health, and the entiremind and body.Life science also dealslargely with environmentalproblems of the earth on which we live and about our coexistence with otherlivingorganisms. We also cannotavoidethicalproblems such as those involvingcloning and genetic testing (Fig. 1-6). Moreover,now that the genomes of many livingorganisms have been sequenced in the 21st century, we are able to solveproblemsusing the same methodologies regardless of what organism we are studying.However,research on the functions of cells at the molecular level, the behavior of individualorganisms, the processes of ecosystems, and the evolution of organismsdepends more than ever on knowledge of not onlyconventionalbiology, but also fields such as physical chemistry,biochemistry,molecular biology,earthscience, and psychology.Furthermore, such researchrequires a synthesis of these fields at variousspatial and temporallevels. Without a doubt,balancedopinions are acquired not onlythroughstudy of individualacademicdisciplines, but also throughinvestigation of synthesis of variousdisciplines (E.O. Wilson).

Fig. 1-6. Life SciencePermeatesSociety

Hypotheses and Truth

"Humans did not exist during the Jurassicperiod of the Mesozoic era when dinosaurs roamed the earth."Can such a hypothesis be formed?Certainly, all humanbones that have been excavated from geologicalstrata have been from the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era and not from the Mesozoic era. This hypothesisseemscorrect from the perspective of evolution as wellbecausemeasurementsusingradioactive isotopes has shown that humansappeared no more than severalmillionyears ago. However, it has actually not been proved in the strictsense that humans did not exist during the Jurassicperiod. If dinosaur and humanbones were everdiscoveredtogether in a geologicalstratum from the Jurassicperiod, it would be time to revise the currentevolutionarytheory, and the possibility of such a discoveryexists. That said, we do not take the position that evolutionarytheory is incorrectjustbecause such a possibilityexists. The course of evolution(morphology and DNA) of all organismssuggests that humans and monkeysdiverged from commonancestors 6 millionyears ago, and this conclusion is as good as truth."Humans did not exist during the Jurassicperiod" is not a hypothesis to be tested.Furthermore,evolutionarytheory is sometimesrejected, and ingeniousspeculations about the birth and evolution of life are sometimesinventedbecausereligiousbeliefs are valued over the knowledge of natural science.However, these speculations do not refute the claims of life science. The history of our life is not so simple that it can be replaced by imagination.